COLOGNE - A one-time mercenary and self-avowed neo-Nazi who hates all lawyers loudly confessed to a triple murder, telling a court Monday he saw killing a lawyer and his family as "execution for high treason" against the German Reich.

The 45-year-old defendant admitted at the outset of his murder trial before Cologne State Court that he killed a 61-year-old lawyer, his 53-year-old wife and their 26-year-old daughter as part of a "battle for liberation" to overthrow the lawyer-dominated political system in Germany and replace it with a fascist state.

He claimed the slain lawyer and his family topped a hit list of "enemies" that included political figures and celebrities whom he insisted must be eliminated in what he called his "own personal war" to topple the system.

He claimed to be the head of an "elite squad of stormtroopers" who have received paramilitary training from him. Also on trial is his 19-year-old former fiancée, who took the stand Monday to say, "I have sworn an oath to stand by him until death us do part."

However, he denied having divulged details of his plans to commit the murders to her.

"I never told her any concrete plans," he testified. "She knew nothing of the death list or of the planned execution."

Both are accused of premeditated murder in the headline-making case that rocked the tranquil Cologne suburb of Overath eight months ago.

The defendant allegedly stormed into the lawyer's office in the centre of town and opened fire with a pump gun, killing all three victims instantly.

The lawyer incurred the defendant's wrath for having handled a case for back rent against the right-wing activist in the 1990s.